Category Archives: Art History

Art and the American West is the most recent undertaking of my long and checkered career as an academic. Since finishing my MA in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine I have spent a great deal of time in our Art History department learning ways to tie in the arts to the American cultural studies that I seem to have fallen into in recent years.

Turns out Hugh Hudson has a new film out that focuses on the discovery of the prehistoric cave paintings in Altamira. If you aren’t familiar with the discovery, the Cliff Notes version is an 8 year old girl named Maria led her father Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola to a cave which held amazing paleolithic paintings of bison among other wonders; scientific debates ensue. Continue reading Prehistory and Paleolithic Pop Culture→

When I looked back through my posts to study for my midterm exam, I realized that I had neglected a post on Karl Bodmer and his patron Prince Maximilian. I intend to remedy that here, and give a few examples of how exacting and detailed Bodmer’s work was. If you appreciate it for no other reason, you should at least respect its authenticity. Continue reading Karl Bodmer: Exacting Expeditionary Artist→

This weekend I had the opportunity visit the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Ft. Worth, Texas. If you are ever in the vicinity make room for a stroll through Ft. Worth’s Cultural District over to Camp Bowie Street and visit. Carter’s bequest that set up the museum after his death has made it possible for the museum to maintain FREE admission to this world class installment of American Art. Continue reading Bingham Redux: Navigating the West at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art→

With the millions of bytes of internet storage dedicated to the work of Albert Bierstadt, there is little I can say here about him that wouldn’t be said better elsewhere, what I will do is collect a few of his works here in order that I can easily scroll through them when I need a quick reminder of the quintessence of the Dusseldorf School. Continue reading The Grand Landscape Pt. 1: Albert Bierstadt→